The present invention relates to the generation of gaseous fuel for internal combustion engines, particularly for such engines which use petroleum products to form explosive mixtures when vaporized in air.
It has long been known that internal combustion engines can be fueled by a mixture of hydrogen and oxygen as well as by the standard vaporized petroleum products. However, until recently, there has been no method for generating hydrogen in a practical manner which would avoid the problem of storage of hydrogen prior to use. When hydrogen is generated from water, it occupies many times the volume of the liquid water from which it is generated. Thus, storage facilities must be under high pressure at low temperature, which requires additional power input to compress and cool the hydrogen, or the hydrogen must be stored in large tanks which are unsuitable for connection to an internal combustion engine. In either case, the storage of hydrogen is extremely inefficient.
In the past several years, atmospheric pollution has increased many-fold from automotive emissions due to the fact that the burning of petroleum-based fuels results in the production of carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide which are emitted into the atmosphere. Internal combustion engines powered by hydrogen or a mixture of hydrogen and oxygen result in the emission of a small amount of hydrogen, a small amount of oxygen and principally water in the forms of liquid or vapor, none of which pollute the atmosphere.
It is preferable that both hydrogen and oxygen be provided in gaseous form to an internal combustion engine in ready-to-burn form. The present invention achieves this aim by employing an electrolytic cell having a plurality of carbon-plate electrodes divided into an equal number of anodes and cathodes, a source of water for injection into the cell, an electrolyte in solution in the water and a cell cooler located within the cell to maintain the temperature of the cell at a desired low level.
Although this invention is principally applicable to internal combustion engines, the gaseous fuel product is suitable for heating or any other fuel use.